Open——Thread

Last night after Drinking Liberally, there was a car idling in the bus stop. Nobody in it. The bus was a bit later than On Bus Away said it would be, so it was there for at least 5 minutes.

A small part of me thinks that I should have stolen it and driven home. I mean it’s a public service removing it from the bus stop, and I get home sooner. I realize that there are some moral and societal downsides to car theft, so I waited for the bus.

Also the Senate Republicans hate you and want you to die without health care.

Another option. Turn off the ignition, remove the key, lock the door, place the key somewhere nearby but not readily apparent.

There is still a chance the owner will be able to leave but more likely Metro has it impounded and the city gets some revenue out of the fine. Or some local locksmith gains some economic advantage by charging the owner to make him a new key.

@3 Whatsamatter, doc, did you forget to buy BA? You sound jealous. Well, I remembered to buy it, and I’d like to take this opportunity to thank those $10-an-hour Charleston wage slaves for contributing to my economic well-being.

“The president’s action completely contradicts his 2016 campaign claims about being better for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans than his Democratic opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.”

Well, that’s not new, why would anyone expect anything different from him?

“Trump dodged the draft a total of five times, once arguing he couldn’t serve in the U.S. military because of bone spurs in his heels.”

Frankly, I think that’s a good thing. He’s not someone I’d want to serve with.

The president’s action completely contradicts his 2016 campaign claims about being better for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans than his Democratic opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Roger Rabbit Commentary: Of course Drumpf is a liar. And massively hypocritical. And did it to appease his hard-right base of hillbilly flag-defilers — you know, the ones waving the Confederate flag of treason.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens to the thousands of transgenders currently serving in the U.S. military. Will they get kicked out? And if they are, will they be given general or medical discharges instead of honorables? Will they be denied veteran’s benefits? Stay tuned, conservative hypocrisy and mean-spiritedness has no limits.

Roger Rabbit Commentary: It’s nice that McCain will get top-flight treatment for his brain cancer. We all wish him well, even though he just said “fuck you” to millions of people who can’t afford his great insurance.

“President Donald Trump’s abrupt decision to block transgender people from serving in the U.S. military came after a GOP fight over gender reassignment surgery threatened funding for the president’s border wall, Politico reported Wednesday.”

Roger Rabbit Commentary: So Drumpf is taking out his border wall frustrations on trans service members? The Germans did this, too. If the Resistance sniped at them, they rounded up the old men, women, and children in the nearest village and shot them all.

Loyal American Patriots serving with honor and great distinction in the United States Senate are now poised to introduce several hundred amendments during open debate to the disgraceful abortion promoting Hillbilly Healthcare bill being rammed through by Trumpublicans.

Yertle can arbitrarily sweep them aside. But he will need a simple majority vote to do that.

As yet unaware that they lost the culture wars more than a decade ago, aggrieved white men, angry that some Latino guy down the street has a nicer fishing boat (and his wife looks sorta like Denise Richards), are supremely confident they can transcend Hillbilly Healthcare blowup, and Russian Treason with fear-of-lady-boys.

“More than 40 million voter records from at least nine states are being offered for sale on a dark web forum …. The voter data for sale includes first, last, and middle names, voter ID numbers, birthdates, voter status, party affiliation, and addresses for some voters in Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Washington state.”

The Republicans are truly showing how they don’t like Freedom. How they don’t have any problem with discrimination, and that the problem that they do have with it is that they can’t discriminate more than they would like.

An article in New Republic reveals that Trump’s Russian mob ties have been under investigation since the 1980s and traces what has happened since then. A summary:

“A review of the public record reveals a clear and disturbing pattern: Trump owes much of his business success, and by extension his presidency, to a flow of highly suspicious money from Russia. Over the past three decades, at least 13 people with known or alleged links to Russian mobsters or oligarchs have owned, lived in, and even run criminal activities out of Trump Tower and other Trump properties. Many used his apartments and casinos to launder untold millions in dirty money. Some ran a worldwide high-stakes gambling ring out of Trump Tower—in a unit directly below one owned by Trump. Others provided Trump with lucrative branding deals that required no investment on his part. Taken together, the flow of money from Russia provided Trump with a crucial infusion of financing that helped rescue his empire from ruin, burnish his image, and launch his career in television and politics. “They saved his bacon,” says Kenneth McCallion, a former assistant U.S. attorney in the Reagan administration who investigated ties between organized crime and Trump’s developments in the 1980s.”

@33 Still running against Hillary? Of course, we all understand that Hillary is just a proxy for Bill, and what you’re really doing is running against Two-Term President Bill Clinton … 16 years after he left office.

@36 Yeah, no shit, Boeing is up another $5 today after jumping $21 yesterday, and it looks like Doctor Dumbfuck doesn’t even own it. Support your local businesses! I did, and I’m sitting pretty now!

I can’t explain why the stock market keeps going up and up. It doesn’t make any sense. The Republican low information buy-high-sell-low crowd must be finally jumping in after sitting out eight years of spectacular gains. If so, I can’t wait to take their money!

Not really remarkable, no one wants grade and middle (or even High School but that may be too much to shoot for) students to use drugs.

But D.A.R.E.? There’s literally dozens of studies that showed that despite hundreds of millions of dollars of federal funding, the prevalence of drugs use by teens who went through the program and those who didn’t were identical. Yes, identical. In other words, hundreds of millions of dollars for proven zero effect. Here’s one report. and here’s another

Maybe Jeff Sessions has prayed hard on it and knows in his heart that D.A.R.E. was actually effective?

It boils down to kicking America and non-Asians out of its area of the planet. China is pretty sick of white European faces hanging out and holding sway in an area that the Chinese think should be all-Asian, with the Chinese Asians running the show.

It’s to be expected. After all, the Chinese always referred to themselves as the “Middle Kingdom.” What we failed to understand is that “Middle Kingdom” really means “Center Kingdom,” as in the “Center of the Universe Kingdom.” So, the main impetus for getting America and other Europeans out of the area is based on a form of nationalism and racism. Those two “isms” are pretty much responsible for all of the world’s ills, so we know what to expect.

McCain, facing his mortality, with so very many sins to answer for, looked for a legacy tonight.

Rather than going down in history as a failed candidate who gave us Sarah Palin and with her a new brand of lying cynical grifter/pundits, rather than being the Senator who always talked about doing the right thing over party and voting with the party anyway, rather than killing untold millions after the brain tumor kills him and he no longer has to face it he read some old press clippings about Maverick and decided not to be the first great monster of 21st Century America.

I’ll take it. But McCain still has a lot to answer for. Forgiveness will take a lot more in his fading years.

Side note, wondering if being an 80 year old brain cancer patient knowing he will never have to face a primary (he either won’t run or won’t be alive in 2022) is the only explanation for him not caving again.

You could have called a tow company or the police. If you borrowed the car from the bus stop it would still be stealing. And you did not mention whether or not the doors were locked. Could be a really small person was inside. Did you check? A car idling in other cities would have caused the city block to be evacuated or a lot of folks killed at the bus stop. Fortunately you are in Seattle where no one would want to take out a group of Democrats. As far as the Republican’s in the US Senate they frankly should have repealed Obama care as they don’t think government should be in health care, yet the plan in place is the Republican plan where everyone must have insurance, and it goes to insurance companies that become more and more a monopoly, Hard to bite your friends who are profiting in health care and drug production when you are a Republican. Fortunately they are bad at math and political math and think they would be tossed out of office by the low number of people who would loose insurance assuming those people would vote for them in the first place. So the circus will continue.

Single payer for all is what we need. If you want to control the cost of health care it’s the way to do it, and every American has skin in the game. Except maybe our super rich as they can afford their own personal health team. Perhaps one will transfer their brain into a younger body one day soon. Won’t that be a brave new world.

@1 Unless the car is owned by the local god father, and everyone knows in the neighborhood knows not to fuck with his car or cars. You being a rube key it and get a visit from Vinny. At least the Russians have not lost the touch in the International politics. Thank you US Senate. And that is a bill any President of either party should veto and remind the Senate who plays the lead role in diplomacy.

It’s of course possible that Carl’s running car was left there by someone who has committed a criminal act in it, and wants someone to drive it away, and if it disappears that is ok, as long as it’s not found for days or weeks. In this case Carl if he had borrowed the car should drive it to Sea Tac and park it in the long term parking, and then take the train and bus home. Of course the car could have been planted by the police and once the thief drives away and is in it for a few minutes the doors lock and the thief driven to the police. Entrapment like this is used by police all the time, and I think it’s wrong, and questionable. Fortunately the police did not get to pray upon Carl. Good choice Carl, though if you had you would be even a more fervent supporter of public transportation. Even if the bus is one from Cairo you would think it’s heaven. Jack Reacher applauds you Carl. Though he might have taken the car if he was on the way to the airport or points south of Seattle.

@4 Of course there is a lot of noise on this, but no one has suggested that Congress do it’s job, and actually pass a law stating trans genders can serve or not. Things done by Presidential fiat can be undone by Presidential fiat. Things passed by Congress the President may ignore, but cannot change.

@8 Or just lucky on an individual level. You rabbits survive because you are born in litters, very large litters, and mom has multiple litters every year. A brick wall is better than nothing, but not at all the best place to hide, Actually lying in a ditch or on open ground would be safer, though both are far from idea. Fortunately for us humans our feet are not considered lucky. Which is why we carry rabbits feet because they are lucky in hiding from tornadoes behind brick walls.

@10 You can only thank them when you sell. Though you might give a little cheer when you get your dividend. You could even like share with the low wage workers in South Carolina. Send them a sponge cake or nut cake.

@11 So Senators are grousing over the budget. They need to do their jobs and actually pass a budget. The President proposes and the Congress disposes. Same as every year. All President’s are considered crazy in the budget process. Only the truly crazy ones who are independent who are willing to VETO the budget scare Congress. We have a few of those Presidents. Like President Obama in 2016.

@16 Hiding in the decision is something that makes all domestic protection laws constitutionally questionable. Why are there laws that treat individuals in a relationship differently from people residing together in no relationship, Assault and the like is still assault whether the persons are in a relationship or not, Should the married enjoy privilege’s or different treatment from the unmarried or those who are merely roommates. Why is it if one punches a roommate in the nose it will not haunt as much as a d9mestic incident. Should it? Should a college dorm dweller not be hounded by an incident with someone assigned to the room, should the married person be hounded? How much resources should the government put in and should those resources be equal?

@20 It’s how politics works. Rather than these Congressman doing the right thing and saying to the wall or doing a bill saying no to trans genders the budget is used . So Trump wants his wall and to heck with transgender troops.

Nixon was screwed over by Kennedy who initiated going to the moon, and Nixon benefited from the moon landings, but he took every opportunity to gut NASA’s manned programs because he was pissed at Kennedy and did not support the manned program, and was not thrilled with the unmanned parts exploring the solar system. Those parts spying on Russia ok, and when he finally understood there had to be a public side of NASA to hide the black programs he went along, Very different from what the Nazi’s did or shat Israel does in the occupied territories according to Palestinians. Which does look very much like what Nazis did, but they are our friend as was Sadam Hussein.

@34 In politics as long as it works and it’s been working just fine in some recent elections then the Republicans will continue to run against the Clintons. Meanwhile sit and sip some vodka until it doesn’t work. Then pick a new stalking horse. Democrats do this too. Maybe a little harder for then since the Republican systems is not fixed and there is no guarantee the front winner and expected Presidential nominee will be the parties candidate. Apparently if Hilliary announces she is running again she will be the Democratic candidate, and will be very difficult for any candidate to defeat as long as the party elites are with her. the democratic party has a serious problem if Hilliary Clinton has the least ability to shape herself as a contender for running for President again.

@35 The Obama administration had ample opportunity to get Congress to pass actually legislation on transgenders, ect in the military. It elected to try to do this by fiat and Presidential mandate. Which can be changed by any future President with a piece of paper and pen. (Twitter account optional.)

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